Be Still, My Beating Heart
by Elliptic Eye
Summary: Space rhinos, hospitals on the moon, bendy straws of evil--all very well. But how did the Doctor get that double heartbeat past all the... er, well, doctors?


Time Lords had two hearts, and they were supposed to be in operation full time.

The Doctor stared up at Royal Hope's main façade, cleaning his back teeth with his tongue and thinking. Twenty-first century humans might be barbarians, but they had a good grasp on the stethoscope, and an extra heart was something they would notice. Even if, apparently, the abnormal static charge of their entire hospital wasn't.

He rocked back on his heels, stuck his hands in his pockets, frowned.

Experience had taught him that when you had two hearts, it was best if they were working. Both of them. All the time. But... there was so much static everywhere, and there could be _anything_ going on in that hospital. Spatio-temporal tampering. Genetic experimentation. A Craxandith erotica book club. Besides, Time Lords might have two hearts, but they didn't actually _need_ them.

Probably. For a while at a go, anyway.

So. On the one hand, hearts were meant to beat. That was what they were for. On the other hand, lookit that plasma arc up there.

The next moment, the Doctor was doubled over and screaming.

_"Oh, Christ! Christ, please, somebody help me!"_

Moments after that, he was inside the hospital. He smiled a smile that only the floor tiles saw. He really was outstanding at agony. He'd had time to notice all the motions that it put one through.

There was shouted medical jargon. There was a gurney (he loved gurneys). There were lots of efficient people in scrubs. And—yep!—there was a nice keen one whipping out her stethoscope. As the metal bell descended toward his chest, the Doctor drew a breath, concentrated, and instructed his body's nanites to interrupt the electrical impulses to his right heart.

He did not, in any way, do it just to see if he could.

Never.

* * *

Stoker was back. Stoker, Stoker, broker stroker—no, actually, best leave the rhyme alone.

Stoker had a basket of kittens with him this time, satiny-headed kittens in long white lab coats doing kittenish things like taking useless notes. He patted one of them negligently on the head and sent her forth: "Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me."

Meh. Some people just couldn't be amazed, no matter how you tried.

The Doctor watched Jones as she made her way around his bed and her stethoscope made its way around her neck. There had been a lot of stethoscopes thus far. Whatever his single heartbeat sounded like, it certainly produced an endless parade of stethoscopes.

But, oh, look, Stoker had lost a kitty! No notepad, fear mistaken for concentration. Miss Jones had put the director out of her mind before she had got to the other side of the bed. Her attention was on the Doctor instead—and what attention it was, so absorbent and so pliable. No, this one wasn't staying in the basket. She was—

—She was saying he'd taken his tie off?

He stared hard at her. "Really?" She stopped, and her eyes fastened on his. "What'd I do that for?"

Jones picked up her stethoscope again and moved in. "I don't know, you just did."

"Not me." _Not yet._

He'd arrested her midstream again. The Doctor looked back, feeling, almost by touch, the fine shifting in her mind. She hadn't any idea why—couldn't have any idea—but she was taking this silly interchange seriously.

Which interested him, because he was considering taking it seriously, too.

"As time passes, and I grow ever more _weary_, Miss Jones..."

"Oh. Right, sorry." Apologetic, absent smile from Miss Jones. Apologizing to Mr. Stoker, or for Mr. Stoker?

For the Doctor, the moment became curiously sticky, as if he'd just tread in a ball of goo. He watched Jones bend over him once more, watched the curve of her neck, the listening in her movements. And because he found he quite wanted to, he... let a heart go.

If Stoker wasn't going to be amazed today, somebody should be.

The free rush of blood into his second heart's chamber—dormant life awakening, pumping out strongly—the freedom in his chest: Having both hearts working again hit the spot just about exactly like a good cup of tea. And the velvet dark of Martha Jones' eyes had sought out his own with a look that was searching, rapt, and still—but never, not even for a second, unbelieving.

Good cat. Oh, _good_ kitty.

Stoker didn't see him hold her eyes and wink. Only fair, since for the space of that breath Miss Jones didn't seem to see Stoker; the man only reclaimed her attention when he got a static zap off the chart. As she trailed away with the rest of the students, she turned her head to look back, plainly not hearing a word of the lecture.

The Doctor gave her his very best supernova smile. He put that look of wonder and promises to be back into her eyes again, the one he knew meant she'd keep his secret just between them, just long enough.

He did not, in any way, do it just to see if he could.

Never.


End file.
